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Last Tuesday (9/20/2016), Metabo flew me out Philadelphia for the Metabo Industrial Tool & Safety Symposium, or as we we told, the Discover Metabo event. At the event, I met many of the Metabo staff, learned about the company, and got my hands on some of their current and new tools in a hands-on environment.

Before we broke out into rotations to try the tools, Metabo gave a two hour presentation and awards ceremony. You want to hear about that, right? Nah, lets save that information for another post — on to the tools!

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The Cordless Workshop

Metabo 18V and 36V Multi-Bay Charger

My first rotation was in the Cordless Workshop. You can’t have a cordless workshop without batteries and a charger, so here’s Metabo’s heavy duty aluminum 8 port charger. It looks like a briefcase, but who can argue with the functionality. It can charge 8 batteries, simultaneously. Plus it can charge either 18 or 36V batteries.

In other words, there are 8 separate charging circuits inside the housing.

Cordless Tools

The first tool we had the opportunity to try out was Metabo’s cordless bandsaw. Following is a video I took of a distributor in my group cutting some square stock.

When it was my turn to give it a try, I was impressed with how smoothly it cut through the stock, and also how quickly it came to a stop after I released the trigger.

Here are some more interesting Metabo 18V tools:

Metabo 18V band file with electronic soft start and clutchMetabo 18V shop fan with up to 7 hours runtimeMetabo 18V LED site lamp

Metabo 18V Drill with Thread Tapping Function

This 18V drill from Metabo has a thread-tapping function. When you slide the switch on top from drill to tap (the icon with the 3 diagonal lines), the drill disables the reversing switch.

In tapping mode, when you push the drill forward and pull the trigger, the chuck turns clockwise to tap the hole. Then, while still holding the trigger, pull the drill backward and the chuck automatically reverses direction to remove the tap from the hole.

It doesn’t seem like the tapping mode can be used to break chips; it’s probably best used with spiral taps and other taps meant for use with power tools.

Stuart’s Note: This is the new Metabo tool I am most excited about! I’ve had good experiences recently using a Dewalt drill to tap some aluminum extrusions, but it would be interesting to see if Metabo’s tapping drill can do a better or easier job.

At this point, somebody blasted an annoying siren to signal that we had to move onto the concrete tools rotation.

Concrete Tools

To start off the concrete tools segment, Metabo showed us their 5″ concrete grinder. For this demonstration, they attached a diamond wheel made for removing mastic from concrete. With a dust collection vacuum attached, there was no cloud of dust and very little debris.

Then they demonstrated what I can only describe as a concrete track saw. It is a masonry cutting/scoring tool that can be attached to their 5″ concrete grinder. It’s used for making cuts in concrete so you can chisel out trenches to run conduit or pipe.

Once all the demonstrations were done, we were able to test each of the above tools plus 7 different sized drills, from a D-handle rotary hammer to a 2″ SDS MAX combination hammer. For the drills, the HEPA vacuums had a drill-through nozzle attachment to capture most of the airborne dust and leave the hole clean enough for epoxy.

Somebody blasted the siren again, and it was onto the technology expansion rotation.

Technology

In this rotation, they showed us some of the technology that makes their grinders stand out from the competition. Above you can see the pad for the mechanical disc brake. This brake will stop the wheel in 2 seconds or less when you release the trigger.

Shown here is an autobalancer, ridiculously simple in design, with just 6 ball bearings in a sealed cage that rotates with the drive shaft.

It lives on the drive shaft and is said to reduced hand and arm vibrations by 50%. Not only that, Metabo has said that the autobalancer also increases the life of the cutting disc or grinding wheel.

They also showed us a live demonstration of their safety clutch. One person intentionally bound the cutting disc while the other was cutting. When the cutting disc on the Metabo grinder was bound, it didn’t kick back or ruin the blade.

Metalworking Tools

The first thing they showed us in this rotation was a race between the Metabo grinder and some of its competitors. The point of this demonstration was to show us that their tool would last longer, cut farther, and use up less of the cutting disc. The competitor on the right even stopped working halfway through the test.

Next they talked about their metal beveling tools (Metabo spells it with two ls). Think of these tools like a router for metal — they use carbide blades to create either a rounded-over a chamfered edge. These tools can cut the profile faster and cleaner than using an angle grinder.

Here is a closeup view of the carbide blades on their cordless metal beveler. You can also see the black height adjustment dial around the base of the tool.

This first video shows the cordless beveling tool cutting a 1/8″ radius on a chunk of metal.

This second video shows one of their corded metal beveling tools being used to chamfer the edge of a thick sheet of metal. When you are welding thick sheets, you need to chamfer the edges for a place for the weld to go.

36V Cordless

The last rotation introduced us to the LiHD battery technology. We’ll have a separate post all about the new Metabo Li-ion battery technology, but here’s a quick intro.

The short of it is that Metabo uses specially-made Li-ion 20700 cells that are 33% larger than the 18650 cells most other manufacturers use, and they have also beefed up their interconnects so the batteries can deliver more power to the tool.

In the latest application of their LiHD technology, they put 20 cells together to form their new 36V battery. This battery opens up “new application areas for cordless machines,” such as their newest 9″ cordless angle grinder.

In our last video you’ll see the cordless 9″ angle grinder cut through a standard guardrail in about 30 seconds. I got a chance to try the 9″ grinder on a chunk of steel and the first thing I noticed was that, when you pull the trigger, it has so much power that it wants to jump out of your hands.

Wrap Up

I tried as many tools as I could in the time we had allotted. I was really impressed by the 9″ cordless angle grinder, but I think my favorite tools were the metal beveling tools. I knew that you could cut steel with carbide bits, but usually I’m thinking of a large tool holding those bits, such as a Bridgeport mill, not a hand-held tool, and certainly not a battery-powered one.

Metabo showed us at this event that they take their tool safety seriously. They have several innovations like their mechanical disc brake, safety clutch, and autobalancer that they feel make their tools safer and allow you to run them longer without fatigue.

They demonstrated a wide variety of specialty concrete and metal tools such as the cordless drill with tapping function, the concrete track saw, and metal beveling tools to give better results and help get the job done faster.

This was just an overview of the Discover Metabo event and there are still more technologies and tools he we hope to cover in the future. Is there any tool or technology from Metabo that you are especially excited about?

*I’d like to thank Metabo for flying me out to Philadelphia for their Symposium and their hospitality while I was there.

About Benjamen

Benjamen Johnson grew up watching his dad work as a contractor and woodworker. He became an electrical engineer and took an interest in woodworking. Check out Ben's projects at Ben's Workshop or follow him on twitter or instagram.

What would be nice is to see a table attachment for those electric bandsaws. A few thir party vendors make some for like In particular SWAG V3.0 Portaband Table or even Milwaukee’s own Milwaukee 48-08-0260 Portable Band Saw Table. Any word on similar accessories announced for Metabo?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding it, but isn’t the tap mode explicitly for breaking chips? Start and run the tap, pull back to reverse the tap and break chips free, then press forward and run the tap again. The auto-reverse mode seems overkill for simply removing the tap at the end of a run. Any reversible drill can do that with a button press.

A hand tap is normally turned forward, and then a quarter turn back, sometimes more.

With machine taps, you don’t need to do that – to back out the tap to break chips.

Some push chips forward, others eject them out.

Without seeing or using the tool, I have doubts that it’s meant to be used with hand taps in a near constant back and forth motion. How slow can it turn to where it can back out just a quarter turn?

And with a drill, you won’t have the feel to know when to forward and reverse taps.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made such a strong assumption, but I have strong doubts that, even if the tapping mode is for chip breaking, hand taps won’t be as suitable as ones meant for machine-turning, or at least those tolerant of it.

I asked Stuart and now I understand what he meant, I agree that this is probably designed to use machine taps.

I didn’t get a photo and I don’t remember the style of tap they had chucked, because I wandered over in the middle of the rep showing somebody else. But as they showed it they just went straight in and out — no backing up several times to break and clear chips.

However in tapping mode the chuck does not turn very fast. It may be possible to run a hand tap pushing forward and pulling backward repeatedly, but like Stuart said in the above comment, you wouldn’t have a very good feel for when the tap is binding.

We had used a Bosch corded tapper-drill with auto-reverse – and a larger capacity one from Fein. The auto-reverse helps preventing tap breakage- because as you feel excess resistance – pulling back to back the tap out is a quick reflex – maybe a bit quicker than pushing a reverse switch. Anyway the Bosch tool seems to have been discontinued – maybe for lack of robust sales. A cordless Metabo might be a good option.

The concrete “track saw” might also be nice. We had looked at some wall chase cutters from Metabo and others – but never bit the bullet to buy one – not having enough work to justify the cost – and just using other less elegant approaches.

that’s what I thought tap mode is more for saving the tap when you pull back.

either way nice setup. don’t know I’d need or want a 9 inch cordless grinder but I’m sure there are some that do

like to see more on the fan also – look interesting. that charger looks ridiculous for all that and an AL box you know what it should do – power a cord line if you wanted it to.

just sayin’. I bet it’s 500 or so dollars too.

most intriguing is that metal beveling too. I’ve heard of people taking 3 something HP routers and putting mill like heads on them but never seen it done in practice. makes a lot of sense. OH and the concrete track saw attachment setup – could have used that recently.

I’ve been trying to find the shroud they used for that concrete “track” style grinder. It seems to be very expensive with limited availability. But it does seems like you could buy the bits an add it to an existing M grinder.

Glad to see Metabo is taking bloggers (and marketing in general) much more seriously. The missing piece to their awesome tools (at least in this country, they’re all over Europe) has always been getting the word out.

Let’s hope they take a serious stab at distribution at the same time as well.

Did you guys see the 2x18v adapter anywhere? It make a brief appearance when the 36v grinder first came out in their guardrail grinding video, but I haven’t seen it since.